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The Guild Wars 2 pyrotank

Today I feel like talking about the build I’m using — and vastly enjoying — in Guild Wars 2. It’s a variation on an Engineer “pyrotank” that is floating around; I pulled together a lot of different builds along this line and have been tweaking it since.

The core of the build is using your flamethrower kit along with the Grand Master trait of Juggernaut. This trait jacks up your toughness while throwing stacks of might on you. In essence, you become a tough-as-nails close-range killing machine. Mostly I’m running 30 firearms (again, mostly for the Juggernaut trait and any flamethrower-related traits), 30 elixirs (there’s a lot of survivability here including Backpack Regenerator, which synergizes with the flamethrower kit), and 10 inventions (I like the 5% damage reduction from Stabilized Armor). Along with a pistol and shield equipped, and I’m just wading into the thick of the fight and coming out in relatively good shape.

I’ve been a huge fan of the flamethrower, not only because it visually rocks and there’s something so satisfying about blasting enemies with a face full of fire, but because it can hit multiple mobs at once and gives you some decent utility. This build is as unsubtle as anything, because you’ve got to attack up close and you’re going to get hit a lot while you do your damage, but the damage stacks up quick on the enemies and I’m rarely in danger of dying. I like to throw down a rocket turret and radiation core for additional damage (I usually have both poison and burning conditions on my foes because of this). When I’m in large group events or trying to tag tons of mobs, I can do so with ease: Just trigger my default flamethrower attack and run around like a madman, laughing all the way.

Sometimes I miss plinking things with my rifle, to be sure. I don’t always like having to be at melee range, especially knowing that the class supports a very long range option, and I’m substantially weaker if I’m trying to attack underwater (for some reason, flamethrowers and water don’t mix… huh.). And I know that the damage doesn’t scale up with kits as it does with regular weapons, which is a common complaint among the Engineer community. Still, I’m having a blast with it, I feel awesome lighting everything on fire, and it fits in perfectly with the character, so I’m going to stick with the build.

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6 thoughts on “The Guild Wars 2 pyrotank”

All your underater engineering woes can be a thing of the past with one simple thing: the grenade kit. They’re monsterously powerful underwater, even after the cast time nerf. So powerful that you’d be a damn fool to use the spammable torpedo thing on the speargun in pretty much any situation.

Hell, if underwater PvP was more commonplace nade engis would out-FotM theives and d/d eles.

The other advantage of underwater grenades I just noticed last night. They are mob targetable instead of ground targetable (though still AoE), which means the autoshot also works. I haven’t noticed a cast time problem.

I have been extolling the virtues of the flamethrower/grenade combo for a bit. I’ll have to look into the build you’re talking about, I have my traits slightly different.

I concur with these other posters. I discovered this a while ago, that the grenade kit underwater for engineers is a wrecking ball. Individual targeting, and using auto-attack (don’t know if it’s been nerfed since last I played), you could lob 3 or 4 grenades at a mob before the first even comes into contact. Made being underwater much more fun. :)

Hi Syp and thanks for the heads up on this. I tried it out after reading your post but never really thought it would do much… how wrong I was! I became a freaking tank alright, so much so I held one control point on my own easily whilst the other two struggled with 3 people each! I then tanked a huge boss worth so much ease it was embarrassing… for the boss, that is! :-D Next I’ll try the grenades under water I think ;-)

I had mine out on Sunday evening, and another player (Thief, I think) asked, “Where can I get a Flamethrower?” He(she?) was a little disappointed when I responded that it’s an Engineer kit. He said, “I may have to start one of those.”